ABSTRACT

Higher education researchers have paid little attention to postgraduate participation. This issue has become more prominent in England following the introduction of high undergraduate fees. Many predicted that master’s participation would decline consequently, strengthening known inequalities in access by socio-economic background at master’s level. The introduction of master’s loans in 2016/17 intended to help those without access to independent resources afford master’s study. We investigate whether this intention was realised by analysing an exceptionally detailed dataset containing information on the destinations of all UK first-degree graduates between 2012/13 and 2016/17 (N = 1,360,965). In doing so we test two hypotheses: master’s loans will increase overall enrolment; and latent demand for master’s among underrepresented groups will mean rates of master’s participation will increase more rapidly for those groups when loans are available. Our results confirm the hypotheses: (1) after the introduction of master’s loans in England, overall enrolment rates increased from 8.9% in 2015/16 to 12.5% the year loans were introduced; and (2) the probability of progressing to a taught master’s across socio-economic groups changed substantially, with students from hitherto underrepresented groups reaching similar rates than their more advantaged counterparts after 2016/17.

摘要

高等教育研究人员很少关注研究生的参与。随着高额本科生费用的引入，这个问题在英国变得更加突出。许多人预测，硕士的参与将因此而下降，这会因硕士的社会经济背景而加剧已知的获取不平等现象。2016/17年度引入硕士贷款的目的是帮助那些无法获得独立资源的人进行硕士学习。我们通过分析包含2012/13年至2016/17年间所有英国一级学位毕业生的目的地信息的异常详细的数据集来调查是否实现了这一意图（N = 1,360,965）。为此，我们检验了两个假设：大师贷款将增加整体入学率；代表性不足的群体对硕士的潜在需求将意味着，在有贷款的情况下，这些群体的硕士参与率将更快地提高。我们的结果证实了以下假设：（1）在英格兰引入大师贷款之后，总体入学率从2015/16年度的8.9％上升到引入贷款的12.5％。（2）在整个社会经济群体中晋升为授课式硕士的可能性发生了很大变化，迄今为止，代表性不足的群体的学生在2016/17年度后的学习率与优势较大的同龄人相似。引入年利率5％的贷款；（2）在整个社会经济群体中晋升为授课式硕士的可能性发生了很大变化，迄今为止，代表性不足的群体的学生在2016/17年度后的学习率与优势较大的同龄人相似。引入年利率5％的贷款；（2）在整个社会经济群体中晋升为授课式硕士的可能性发生了很大变化，迄今为止，代表性不足的群体的学生在2016/17年度后的学习率与优势较大的同龄人相似。